As you’d expect, I’m often sought out by friends and family when they’ve got a PC or laptop buying decision to make - chances are many of you are too, given that you’re here on bit-tech. I don’t mind doing it of course, but I’m always intrigued by the approach some people take when buying a new computer.

The aspect that surprises me the most is the way that many of the people who have sought my advice over the years have a ‘just enough to get me by’ approach to computing - they’re only looking for a PC or laptop that will perform the tasks they do now. This is their prerogative obviously - it’s their money after all - but I’ll always challenge them on it.

My Mass Effect 3 play through started off so well - so promising, so full of hope. I was going to get the best ending possible, the one where everyone lives happily ever after and nothing was going to stop me. Yes, OK, the reapers were here and they were tearing the earth a new one, but I was confident I had the friends and the ballsy get-it-done attitude to sort them out one way or another. They were messing with the wrong galaxy this time.

If you're lucky enough to own a modern SSD, then you'll probably have been quite impressed by how much of a difference it made to every day tasks on your PC.

Compared to hard disks, boot up times are reduced, as are game and application load times, while file transfers can see huge speed boosts. Personally I've found Windows 7 and programs I use regularly such as Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop to be much more responsive too.

All these benefits, of course, point to the fact that hard disks are somewhat of a bottleneck in modern PCs - a fact most of us have known for a while. So why are they still around? Surely if SSDs offer such awesome speed boosts (not to mention the fact they're more robust, quieter and produce less heat) the hard disk should have died a long time ago?

Now that both Intel and AMD have released their next-gen, super-fast processors, James, Clive, Paul and Antony gather in a dingy room to discuss the fall-out. We should stress that this isn’t a server room, so they’re still a bit disappointed by what amounts to a pair of server CPUs in consumer guise.

Clive, Joe and Harry gather to discuss whether Battlefield 3 or Modern Warfare 3 is the better game. Harry even produces actual facts to support his arguments, but it’s all pointless because everyone knows Skyrim is the best game at the moment.

During the discussion, we also talk about whether singleplayer mode is effectively dead with modern FPS games, and whether CoD should be seen more as yearly sports title, such as FIFA or Football Manager.

I’ve recently put together a media PC for playing music in my kitchen. It’s just a simple little Intel Atom-based box, but it does all I need for the 40 minutes or so I usually spend cooking or washing up. Its one negative issue is that it takes a little while to boot up and get into Windows Media Centre - a fact that has put my housemate Jack off using it as he doesn’t tend to spend as long in the kitchen as me. By the time it’s booted up and ready to go, he’s nearly ready to turn it off again.

In the 15-odd years I've been building my own PCs, all my main systems have invariably been housed in large towers. Whether this was because they needed to accommodate multiple hard disks when I was experimenting with RAID, or to fit water-cooling hardware inside, my cases have got perpetually larger.

Painkiller is a game about frenzy, about being 'in the zone' and about bunny-hopping at 100 miles an hour around gothic castles packed with skeletons and cackling witches. It's a game about violence and speed; the satisfying buzz of a well-executed headshot performed from the hip.

Or, to put it another way, it's a game about 'THUNK!' That's the noise it makes when you fire half a pool-cue across the map and it lands, pinning your enemy's collapsed body to the floor.

Since its announcement and subsequent inclusion as a pre-requisite to play Battlefield 3, EA’s re-branded online store, Origin, has been causing plenty of discussion. Opponents argue that Steam already serves as an online digital distribution service, as well as a match-making system, day-one DRM system and game browser; with Steam already providing these services, why must EA force Origin on us?

This week Joe and Paul are joined by Craig Lager, Gaming Daily editor and Neptune's Pride flagellant.

We start off the conversation by talking about what each of us was most excited to see at last weekend's Eurogamer Expo. Paul was predictably excited about getting his hands dirty with CS: GO for the first time, while Craig was wary of falling madly in love with Skyrim.